If you had a funky, alternative, yoga-practicing, holistic-remedy-dispensing grandmother from New Orleans, she might feed you something like the food served up at Yah’s. The menu consists of a rotating circuit of $10 daily specials with no separate options, placing one at the mercy of the daily special. While this is typically a risky affair, in this case it’s your funky vegan grandma in the kitchen, making a meal that emerges comforting, inexplicably smooth and animal product-free.
Friday’s daily special was a mishmash of sides foregrounding “BBQ Nuggets,” a seitan-based meat alternative glazed lightly in barbeque sauce. With a tender, meaty texture, the BBQ nuggets were a hit among my cohorts, not one of whom was vegan. Eggplant lasagna served as another locus of the meal, and the delightfully creamy, not-quite-cheesy top layer left me wondering what mysterious alchemy had been performed in the kitchen. The complements to the dishes brought us back to the realm of the familiar. A generous bowl of subtly flavorful garlic lentil stew, the “mushroom patty,” a doughy pastry stuffed with diced, marinated mushrooms that suffers only from its cafeteria-style name, and a rather ordinary vegetable kebab. The confusing array of well-prepared sides gave the meal the feeling of a Thanksgiving feast, and although barbeque and lasagna are not typical brethren, we all ate with a potluck-inspired enthusiasm. A blueberry “cheesecake,” which a friend accurately described as “weird but good,” followed the dinner. While surprisingly similar to the real thing in taste, the dry texture of the cake ultimately undermined its $5 price tag.

The not-quite-thematic state of the meal was consistent with the rest of the experience. Glasses and plastic cups alike crowded onto the table with a variety of colorful dishware. Silverware came wrapped adorably in a bit of paper towel. Consistency in the menu was similarly ambivalent, with the veggie kebab replacing grilled broccoli in our day’s special. True to its Southern roots, the service was sweet but meandering. Plates generally emerged from the kitchen one at a time in temporally unsystematic shifts, and when our group ballooned from three to seven, water was hard to come by.

Although occasionally frustrating, Yah’s easy-going approach ultimately paid off. In addition to their daily specials, the restaurant cooks up a number of other sides that can be freely substituted at no extra charge. And while the restaurant purports to close at 8pm, my group arrived ten minutes before the hour and things were just heating up. A live blues band had even crowded into the room, playing well past 8 o’clock and on into the next hour. If relaxed service is a take-it-or-leave-it condition of a Yah’s visit, the benefits still outweigh the negatives. Yah’s Cuisine provides the “comfort vegan soul food” it claims on the menu, with double the comfort.
Yah’s Cuisine, 2347 E. 75th Street. Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-8pm. All items under $10. (773) 382-1742.

The origin of the jazz brunch is hard to pinpoint, but it most likely began in New Orleans as entertainment for wealthy tourists. Restaurant brunches almost always tend towards the American and French standards of omelets, pancakes, and eggs Benedict, and the musical entertainment is almost as uniformly jazz or gospel, never Baroque or rock ‘n’ roll brunch. It’s a meal in keeping with the culturally mixed and commercial culture of New Orleans. The central problem, then, is that because brunch is by nature a complacent experience, must it domesticate the jazz that is paired with it? What does that mean when the jazz brunch comes to a city with such a long and strong jazz tradition?

In Chant’s case, the restaurant invites a diverse mix of musicians to provide entertainment at the Sunday brunch. In addition to Morikeba, Chant has featured blues singer Gloria Shannon, jazz vocalist Maggie Brown, and many others beyond the norm of the standard jazz quartet. As an Asian-inspired fusion restaurant, says Chant catering manager Angelique Connor, “we’re interested in combining cultures.” That means accompanying the fried, lobster-stuffed wontons with traditional West African storytelling and songs. As for having a musical brunch at all, Chant’s upscale appeal makes it a natural fit for an experience not offered by many other restaurants on the South Side. And Hyde Park, as Connor points out, “has a very rich history in music.”

In Woodlawn, Backstory Café has a weekly jazz brunch with a buffet and made-to-order menu. In its cozy one-room space, it’s a more intimate affair than at Chant. Though the menu changes weekly, jazz trio Recovery are returning guests; members Ben Brown, Jeff Kimmel, and Brian Sulpizio play experimental music throughout the city. Backstory’s jazz brunch is an enjoyable experience, a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. But to enjoy jazz as an active experience, the café’s weekly avant garde jazz night is a better bet.

W.C. Handy’s Bistro in South Shore is a “health and entertainment bar” that promises a jazz brunch on Sunday, though they were closed when the Chicago Weekly visited. The restaurant claims to be the “Only One of it’s [sic] Kind in the Mid-West,” and it may be the only of its kind in Chicago: serving meat-filled and vegetarian dishes alike, offerings include salmon croquettes with grits and eggs or vegetarian corned beef with yams. Live music on Sunday afternoons recall the mission of the original W.C. Handy, often called the Father of the Blues, who is credited with bringing blues to the mainstream in the teens and twenties. As jazz has become ubiquitous background music, it may take such a mission to make it a focus once again.

Joelle Lamarre, Sean Harris, and Isaiah Robinson sing along to Roberta Thomas''s improvisation (Mehves Konuk)

“We are here because people in the community really do enjoy opera; they really do enjoy classical music,” said Marvin Lynn, founder and executive director of the SSOCC. Lynn, a lyric baritone and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, founded the predominantly African-American opera company in November 2008 to help make opera more accessible to audiences on the South Side, with a particular focus on pieces that feature African-American artists by African-American composers, as well as some classic repertoire.

The SSOCC has so far conducted two shows, featuring gorgeous vignettes from pieces like “La Bohème,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” “Carmen,” “Porgy and Bess,” “Falstaff,” and “Don Giovanni.” Both shows boasted an impressive turnout, with about six hundred people attending the February 2009 show and a thousand attending the June 2009 performance, which were both free of charge.

The cast is a conglomerate of 35 mostly local artists of obvious passion and indubitable talent. Lynn has performed at several prestigious venues such as the Annapolis Opera, Dreamstreet Theater, and the Maryland Arts Festival. SSOCC Artistic Director Elizabeth Norman Sojourner—a lyric coloratura soprano—has performed at the White House and Kennedy Center, and appeared with symphonies throughout Europe and Africa.

Yet what is most impressive about the lively group is the infectious vitality and joyous vibe they exhibit when sharing the stage. Their peculiar ability to match mature beauty with charming jest allows them to stimulate the classics with just a hint of gospel sentiment. “For repertoire, it’s good to work with people you like and respect,” said performer Sean Harris, a tenor. And indeed they do. Watching them playfully crowd around a piano during rehearsal, singing together in graceful synchrony to the jazz classic “Lullaby to Birdland,” it’s hard not to run up there and belt out a few rusty notes yourself, just to be able to join in on the chaos of snapping fingers and pealing laughter.

In addition to offering opportunities to local African-American vocalists, youth outreach is a primary goal of the SSOCC. Lynn is currently developing a comprehensive educational program for children and adolescents who are musically interested, but who may be unable to pay for singing lessons. The program will be free of charge, and the students will be taught by the cast members, with whom they will then perform.

The SSOCC’s next event will be the “Broadway Regards” event on October 23. Conducted once a year, this benefit raises money so that Lynn and the rest of the SSOCC may “offer as many free performances as we can.” The upcoming show will be the first musical show they have performed, and the first that will all be in English. The event will feature pieces from “Dreamgirls,” “The Wiz,” “Sweeney Todd,” “West Side Story,” “Showboat,” “Ragtime,” “Into the Woods,” “Chicago,” and “Firefly.”

The event will be held in the South Shore Cultural Center’s Robeson Theater, whose recent renovation was funded by SSOCC’s partner, the Chicago Park District. Lofty gold-trimmed Corinthian pillars, polished white marble floors, and a few stunning crystal chandeliers ornament the Mediterranean-style center. A line of large glass windows open out onto the lawns. And the occasional snippet of a bus horn makes it all the more striking.
Robeson Theater, 7049 S. South Shore Dr. October 23. Friday, reception at 5:30pm, concert at 7pm. $65 for dinner and the concert, $20 for concert only. (773)241-6147. southshoreopera.org

best corned beef
A.P. Deli
It’s no secret what A.P. Deli’s specialty is: Printed all over the store’s outside and inside, even on the receipt, is “Chicago’s #1 corned beef.” Begun in 1984 as a small grocery and liquor store in the far south neighborhood of Roseland that offered sandwiches on the side, the deli now has four branches across the South Side and several in the suburbs. The location at 75th and Chappel isn’t pretty; the grungy exterior, the clear plastic shields separating customers and employees, and the lack of seating cast doubt on the website’s claim that people come “from all over Chicago” to get their corned beef fix. But if they don’t, maybe they should: A.P. knows its specialty well. About half of the menu works out to corned beef under various names (“Big Beef,” “Pound N-Half”) or related sandwiches like Reubens, but the original is probably the best. Make sure to ask for onions, mustard, rye bread, and anything else you want on top, or you’ll get a plain hunk of salted beef in bland bread. But even that might be worth the trip. 2025 E. 75th St. Sunday-Friday, 10am-11pm; Saturday, 10am-midnight. apdeli.com (Sam Feldman)

best sugar rush
Give Me Some Sugah
If you’re looking for a sugar-free meal, this isn’t your kind of bakery. Other than a few breakfast items like muffins and scones, the three-page menu is made up almost entirely of mouthwatering desserts, from pineapple upside-down cakes to chocolate cream pies. Other than the Shawn Michelle’s ice cream, everything on the menu is made on-site, and proprietor Lenore Lindsey isn’t afraid to get creative: Her lime bar manages to condense all the goodness of an entire key lime pie into a surprisingly small volume, and her potato chip cookie is about ten times better than it sounds. If you don’t see the dessert you want on the menu, let her know and she’ll probably make it for you. 2234 E. 71st St. Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-7:30pm. givemesomesugah.com (Sam Feldman)

best multitasking space
Experimental Station
There isn’t really one word for what the Experimental Station is. The nonprofit organization that now occupies the building was born from the ashes of a 2001 fire that destroyed a complex used by artist Dan Peterman for his socially conscious art projects. Today it’s used for a range of purposes, which in the past year have included performances by the Hyde Park Community Players, a monthly film series, King Ludd’s Midway Arcade, and the 61st Street Farmers Market. Aside from these periodic attractions, the Experimental Station includes the Backstory Cafe, which offers free Wi-Fi and serves sandwiches, soups, and Metropolis coffee, and Blackstone Bicycle Works, which not only does bike sales and repairs but also summer and after-school programs that teach neighborhood kids how to work on bikes. This Saturday, September 26, is a good day to check out the Experimental Station, since it’s one of the venues for the third annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. (773)241-5458. experimentalstation.org (Sam Feldman)

best jamaican
Three J’s
The restaurant Three J’s (standing for Jammin’ Jamaican Jerk) is not fine dining, but the place is a step above Boston Market at the prices of Harold’s Chicken Shack. Don’t be deterred by the modest interior, which looks not unlike a typical burger joint—what the place lacks in décor is made up for in its delicious Jamaican fare. Three J’s eponymous jerk chicken is savory with a home-cooked taste, avoiding excessive greasiness. Their ox tails, an exotic and worthwhile dish, are covered in a creamy gravy over a bed of rice. In both dishes the meat is incredibly tender and slides easily off the bone. Fish and shrimp dishes are sometimes available, but vegetarians should avoid the place unless they desire a meal made up of sides: potatoes either mashed or sweet, steamed and buttery greens, and white bread as dense as pound cake, perfect for wiping your plate clean. Service is slow, but friendly. 1713 E. 75th St. Monday-Thurday, 6am-11pm; Friday-Saturday, 6am-midnight; Sunday, 7am-9pm. (773)667-1360 (Chris Havlin)

best comfort food
Daley’s
Around since immigrant laborers needed lunch in the 1930s, Daley’s has weathered the massive changes to Woodlawn it has seen pass. Not only does its lengthy history give it a perspective few institutions on the South Side can match, it also gives Daley’s solid recipes for everything from pancakes to hamburgers. The history is as thick as the grease; it’s also as thick as the ties that bind Woodlawn together. 6307 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Monday-Sunday, 7am-10pm. (773)643-6670 (John Thompson)

best café with a view
My Soul Cafe
Tucked away at the corner of 72nd and Exchange, this café serves good coffee and better than average sandwiches, as well as organic tea and cold drinks. The prices aren’t bad, either, and with a purchase you can use the store’s free Wi-Fi and fax machine/copier. They even rent out laptops. Best of all, perhaps, is the view out the front window: the Metra trains majestically rushing by on Exchange Avenue. 7201 S. Exchange Ave. Monday-Friday, 7am-7pm; Sat, 8am-5pm. (773)336-8592 (Sam Feldman)

Evan Glassman’s Studio E was the perfect mix of living space and gallery to achieve the right mood for Cuevas’s event. “I’ve always found the fine dining scene to be a little cold,” Cuevas explained on Saturday night, just before a salad of endive, asparagus, and caprioli goat cheese “pearls” was served. The guests nodded in agreement: a woman described how she felt a restaurant’s reputation could be completely undermined by a “stuffy” atmosphere. Cuevas’ solution, the dinner party, encourages chatter among the guests through communal seating arrangements, and often includes a musical or artistic component to further conversation. Live painting was provided by local artist Rex Floodstrom, whose futuristic urban landscapes were displayed throughout the gallery.

Guests could develop their own artistic tendencies, as Glassman had put aside some wall space for a group mural. Upon entering, guests sipped wine (all dinners are BYOB), networked, and added their touch to this rapidly growing artwork. The first course, a grana padano crisp filled with queso fresco mousse topped with fresh chives, was passed out as guests took in Glassman’s unique interior, which included a Zen-like walk-through garden and a high ceiling tiled with doors.

The pace of the meal was relaxed, but an open kitchen allowed one to watch the busy all-volunteer staff. The first hot dish was a spicy pesto made from morita chilies and Michigan ramps, which generously coated a homemade linguini. The cheese in this dish truly captured the “underground” nature of Clandestino: this crumbly, salty, raw-milk cojita was made by Cuevas’s uncle in Mexico, and travelled across the border packed in his family’s suitcases. The pasta was followed by a rib-eye and short rib burger, topped with Wisconsin cheddar and served on a pretzel bun. Finally, the long awaited dessert arrived: a Meyer lemon pound cake with a scoop of rhubarb cream cheese ice cream, which was deceptively smooth before a delightful rhubarb tang.

Clandestino holds dinners in different spaces all over Chicago, and is developing a large and diverse following. Anyone can get involved by visiting their website and signing up for their mailing list. A community of people has sprung up around Cuevas’s original idea, drawn together by their love of good food, conversation, and unique, one-of-a-kind experiences.

Firefighters on parade; Library of Congress

The Fire Museum of Greater Chicago began 12 years ago as a collection of records and memorabilia from Chicago’s firefighting past. For years, it maintained the city’s only exhibits dedicated to fire history in a small library on the third floor of Saint Gabriel Elementary School at 45th Street and Wallace Avenue. When St. Gabriel reclaimed this space in 2007, Kugelman and others involved with the collection spoke to several of the city’s aldermen and eventually secured space in a 1916 vintage firehouse at 52nd Street and Western Avenue. The historic space is currently undergoing serious renovation. Walls are being stripped out and doors replaced, and a huge amount of work remains before the museum will be ready to hold exhibits. The renovation is partially historical, as some features of the station’s original design will be reproduced to evoke an early firehouse. The massive front doors are being replaced, and a fire pole will eventually run through the station, though not for visitor use. While some exhibits will incorporate the building itself, Kugelman is clear: “We’re not restoring a firehouse; we’re using a firehouse as a museum.”

Most of the space will display pieces from the museum’s collection. Planned exhibits include vintage alarms, tapes, and dispatching equipment, as well as wood pipelines from before the installation of metal plumbing. One room will display the helmets of former commissioners and chaplains; another will be filled with uniforms. The museum will also exhibit two antique firefighting rigs, an attraction that Kugelman believes will appeal to the public. Several items commemorate Chicago’s unique fire history. Crosses, religious icons, and a realistic model memorialize the deadly Our Lady of Angels School fire in 1958, one of the Chicago fire service’s most painful moments. Artifacts rescued from the 1893 World’s Fair fires will also appear, including a statue of Columbus that has became a memorial to the firefighters who died trying to put out the blazes.

The collection also comprises an extensive archive, and Kugelman emphasizes the museum’s role in making this history accessible to the community. Thousands of logbooks, some dating back to the 1870s, and a huge collection of photographs will be available to the public. “It’s about memory. If somebody comes in and says, ‘Grandpa was in the fire department in 1892, do you have anything on it?’ We’ll be able to say ‘Yeah, sure.’ We’ll pull out the logbooks and the photographs. We’ll have a copy machine there so people can take all this with them.” If renovations can be completed in time, Kugelman hopes the museum will open on September 11th this year.

The site of the African-American Firefighter Museum lies several miles away in another historic fire station at 68th Street and South Harper Avenue. The project is in its early stages; specific uses of the space are still being considered, and a tentative opening date of February 2010 depends on funding. Abdurrahim Khan, a retired fire captain and the chairman of the new museum’s operations committee, says that the museum’s mission is “to tell the unique history of African-American firefighters and how they contributed to the service.” He emphasizes the museum’s focus on the specific historical challenges that black firefighters faced in a service that was racially segregated into the 1950s. Current plans include a children’s library in the museum, which may allow the museum to serve as a community center.

Everyone seems to know everyone else in Chicago’s firefighting community, but the two museums are distinct projects. At this stage, there has been little communication between them. But they share a commitment to the traditions of Chicago’s fire service, and if all goes well, within a year they will finally be sharing it with the rest of the city.

Best Beach
Rainbow Beach
Rainbow Beach extends from 75th to 79th Streets, making it one of the longest beaches on the South Side. The most obvious part of Rainbow Beach’s appeal is what it doesn’t have: traffic snarling in the background. Any spot on the beach affords a sweeping view of the entire downtown area, from Navy Pier to the Sears Tower and beyond. And Rainbow Beach isn’t just a pretty face; there’s soul there, too. As the area around the beach became gentrified in the early ’60s, black and white youths fought over the right to inhabit the beach, with the scuffles sometimes getting violent. The beach eventually became a site of a major protest against de facto segregation policies when the NAACP staged a “wade-in” to protest policies which were shifting the area’s population from black to white. 3111 E. 75th St. (Ben Oren)

Best Café
Exchange Cafe
Tucked away at the corner of 72nd Street and Exchange Avenue, this café serves good coffee and better than average sandwiches, as well as organic tea and cold drinks. The prices aren’t bad, either, and with a purchase you can use the store’s free Wi-Fi and fax machine/copier. They even rent out laptops. On Mondays, when everything else in South Shore is closed, the café gives out free coffee with any purchase from 7am to noon. Best of all, perhaps, is the view out the front window: the Metra trains majestically rushing by on Exchange Avenue. 7201 S. Exchange Ave. Monday-Friday, 7am-7pm; Sat, 8am-5pm. (773)336-8592 (Sam Feldman)

Grass Roots Art (GRA) is just shy of one year old, but for small, family-run galleries, even one birthday is nothing to sniff at. “It feels like a big deal,” said founder Erica Ruth, speaking of the upcoming anniversary (December 7). The gallery was established after Ruth and her family moved into another house and were contemplating what to do with their former residence. Ruth explains, “We could either rent it out, or we could try something really cool and really neat. So we decided to try.”

That decision was also influenced by Ruth’s mother and GRA co-founder Ollie Dantzler. As one of the many artists who had to fit art in between work and family, Dantzler personified a struggle that Ruth hopes to alleviate. She might not be able to make creating art into a lucrative career, but she can at least give artists some of the credit they deserve. As she pointed out, “People sometimes think artists are kind of crazy, and they don’t take them seriously. But I can’t imagine a world without art.”

GRA is more than a space where local visual artists can display their work. The basement also serves as a venue for performing artists, including both musicians and poets. It acts as an intermediary between artists and the community, especially potential buyers. Perhaps most important, the center puts out a newsletter that profiles exhibiting artists and advertises upcoming shows. “Artists are interesting people,” Ruth said. “But only a few of them get any press.” Judging from the positive response it has received, the newsletter has done much to remedy that fact. The mailing list has grown large enough to reach even out-of-town artists, some of whom have expressed interest in displaying at the gallery. It even attracted acclaimed painter and illustrator Rodger Gerberding, whose work will be seen at the GRA’s anniversary reception.

From 2 to 5pm on December 2, this reception will highlight Dantzler’s artistic career. Geberding will join her as part of the Human Installation Series, an innovative exhibit that operates on the idea that, as Ruth put it, “the artist is the true work.”

The latest exhibit at GRA was by an African-American women’s photography collective called Framing Herstory. The works ranged from Marion Jones’ lighthearted “Lil’s Salad,” a vibrant, summery close-up of lettuce, tomatoes and onions, to Penny Lawrence’s more sober black-and-white photographs depicting homelessness on Lower Wacker and Lower Columbus Drives. Many of the artists dropped by during Saturday’s closing reception to talk about the process and purpose behind each of their photographs. Visitors took the opportunity to ask questions about the artists’ choice of camera and color. Several images were digitally edited for colors that deliberately convey a mood, such as Leah Rogers’ “Blue Mystery,” or to combine separate photos, like the noses and lips in Gerri Gibson’s “Black Berry.” Others simply heightened colors or cropped edges, as Raishon Lewis did in “Mississippi Bells.” Some viewers seemed to pick up ideas for their own photographic projects, one valuable result of the interaction between the gallery vistors and the displaying artists.

GRA had a full house of visitors on Saturday, and it seems to be attracting more all the time. So far, only a minority of the visitors have come from the immediate neighborhood of South Shore. However, GRA’s organizers are already planning ways to draw more of those who remain reserved, such as sponsoring activities for kids at a local church. This willingness to approach and feature art from different angles distinguishes GRA from other galleries, and it may ultimately prove vital to its success.

For information on the University of Chicago VIP night, contact GRA at yourgrassrootsart.com and you will receive a reply with the date and time of the reception.

Best Serious Culture
eta Creative Arts Foundation
Chicago has always been one of the vanguards of African-American culture. The DuSable Museum of African-American History was the first museum in the world to focus exclusively on African-Americans. The founder of the DuSable also helped found one of the institutions which ensure that African-American culture will be a part of the future as well as the past: the eta Creative Arts Foundation. The basis of the Foundation is a professional theatre, which commissions original works for its stage featuring nationally renowned talent. The plays all depict the African-American experience, but that’s about all they have in common. A typical year’s run will include plays about the 1930s South, a slave couple that gets married in secret, an urban family trying to weather their differences, and a piece which throws them all together at once. The plays are performed in the Foundation’s theatre. Offering good sightlines for all 200-odd plush red seats, it’s another reason why Chicago is second to no city in terms of quality theatre.

The Foundation also boasts two art galleries and classrooms for children, which provide art and theatre instruction. The theatre classes are especially successful, producing graduates such as the current artistic director for the Foundation and Hollywood stars like Kel Mitchell.
The Foundation’s future looks even brighter than its present. A multi-million dollar expansion is due to complete construction within the next few years, which will almost exponentially increase the Foundation’s current space. Look for more classrooms, a larger theatre, and a community space which can hold everything from weddings to wakes to conceptual art. 7558 S. Chicago Ave. Show runs and times vary. (773)752-3955. www.etacreativearts.org (Ben Oren)

Best Place to Feel Like a Millionaire
South Shore Cultural Center
Ah, to be young and rich; to walk into an opulent clubhouse and hear footsteps reverberate down columned corridors and off domed ceilings; to play a round of golf away from the hustle and bustle of the city; to play a tennis match in a secluded court; to eat a lavish picnic on a private beach; what a lifestyle one could lead. Of course, in order to enjoy it a large pile of cash has to be lying around somewhere close at hand—or, failing that, a bus that goes down to 71st street and the South Shore Cultural Center.

Converted from a 1920s country club, the Cultural Center retains all the aura of privilege while being free and open to the public. The entrance to the complex is a lavish arch, the driveway to the Center lined with thirty-foot columns and a glimmering flower garden. The Center itself is a large two story building, all marble and tile that houses an auditorium, a large gathering area for events which looks like it could hold a Southern debutante ball circa 1932, and an art gallery which holds around fifty works of painting, sculpture and photography. Behind the Center winding paths lead down through a wooded glen and past a nine-hole golf course and tennis courts, both of which are far enough removed from the road that they may as well be in Montana. The real prize is the beach. It’s wide enough that a hundred people would make a sparse population, and is at the end of a channel so that surf, loud surly surf, constantly crashes on the shore. Picnic tables and grills dot the freshly mowed grass which surrounds the beach.

Besides the facilities, the Center hosts a slew of social events depending on the season: back-to-school mixers, art and theatre classes, movies, and concerts. The horseback riding lessons are also offered, and are only a little more dangerous than the mixers. Whether taking advantage of the events or the whiff of the high-life the facilities provide, patrons at the South Shore Cultural Center know what it’s like to be filthy rich, if only for a little while. 7059 S. South Shore Drive. Monday-Friday, 9am-6pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm. (773)256-0149. (Ben Oren)

Best Beach
Rainbow Beach
To the discerning Chicagoan, all beaches are not created equal. The beach adjacent to the Point in Hyde Park is fairly average. Not too big, not too small, and just the right amount of pollution: enough to make things interesting, but not enough to be dangerous. Usually. The beaches on the North Side, especially around Lincoln Park, are wide, gorgeous and visions of what urban beaches should be. Except they’re so popular that extending an arm while sunbathing will invariably hit a 350-pound Polish guy and three skinny emo kids from Wicker Park. Traipsing around the city in search of the perfect beach can be exhausting (especially in flip-flops), so save the time and effort and go straight to the best beach in the city: Rainbow Beach.

Rainbow Beach extends from 75th to 79th street, making it one of the longest beaches in the Chicago area. The most obvious part of Rainbow Beach’s appeal is what it doesn’t have: traffic snarling in the background. The beach, and the park which surrounds it, extends several blocks away from the city, so that it doesn’t seem like playing in the sand and surf is taking place in the median of Lake Shore Drive.

Other attractions help Rainbow Beach put other Chicago beaches to shame. There is a large gym, fitness center, and outdoor recreational facilities like handball, tennis and basketball courts (by some sort of minor miracle, the basketball hoops actually have nets). Any spot on the beach affords a sweeping view of the entire downtown area, from Navy Pier to the Sears Tower and beyond.

Rainbow Beach isn’t just a pretty face; there’s soul there, too. As the area around the beach became gentrified in the early 60s, black and white youths fought over the right to inhabit the beach, with the scuffles sometimes getting violent. The Beach eventually became a site of a major protest against de facto segregation policies when the NAACP staged a “wade-in” to protest policies which were shifting the area’s population from black to white.

Whether sunning, chilling, grilling, or playing basketball, tennis or Frisbee, Rainbow Beach is the best spot in the city to do it on the sand. 3111 E. 75th St. (Ben Oren)

Best Place to Get Your Jesus On
God’s Dollar Store
The best thing about living in a big city is that every corner conceals a new surprise. Someone aimlessly wandering around 71st street, tunelessly whistling and putting a hop in every fourth step, would never think to themselves that a store satisfying every conceivable Christian proprietary need, and most standard Earthly ones as well, would be just up the block. Once upon it, the store is hard to miss: Music blares out into the street, and Jesus merchandise fills the front windows. God’s Dollar Store doesn’t mess around with first impressions.

A combination of spiritual salve and pragmatic provider, God’s Dollar Store carries the regular dollar store fare (some food, some toys, some household necessities, etc.) while also providing a large selection of diverse Christian paraphernalia. Things needed to attain salvation (Bibles and prayer guides), provide meditation (incense), and proclaim faith (T-Shirts with varying Jesus motifs), as well as a multitude of other Christian items, are all offered.

A Christian aura permeates the store. Prices are listed on the bottoms of drawings of crosses, some of which say “thank you Jesus” in red pen. The music blaring into the street is louder and more discernable inside; a version of “Our God is an Awesome God” is sung over riffing guitars and power chords, followed by a hymn set to house music. Posters and banners proclaiming God’s love and greatness line the walls. The overall tone isn’t oppressive piety but a light-hearted reveling in Christian glory; slogans on the t-shirts range from the sappy-yet-satisfying “Life is Fragile – Handle with Prayer” framed with pictures of butterflies to the sort-of-obnoxious-but-good-hearted Ford symbol with the F turned into an L.

Michelle and David Williams have been running the store for fifteen months, and work hard to make each customer feel satisfied, beginning with Michelle greeting each customer with a “God bless you, how are you doing?” when someone enters. They also ably assist customers who are unable to find some item they want in the store, be it a specific spiritual requirement or a favorite kind of toilet paper. “We’ve acquired a reputation for being able to get anything, whether it’s spiritual or practical,” David says without boastfulness in his voice. Lack of pride is an enviable quality, but it must be hard for the proprietors of God’s Dollar Store to cultivate. 2150 E. 71st St. (Ben Oren)

The Best Smells
The Scentuary
Beware the snake oil salesman, children. Be wary around the peddler of “ancient Chinese herbs” who promises to make the worries of the world melt away and induce an otherworldly superhuman calm. The man on the soapbox, shouting in rhyming couplets the mental and spiritual benefits of his specially formulated fragrance, can only lighten your wallet and shroud you in a cloud of stinky shame. This does not mean to pass up the honest merchants, the ones who care about their customers and provide fragrances which really do assist in getting through the day to day drudgery of living. In short, it means not to overlook The Scentuary, whose commitment to wellness through aromatic therapy is impressive.

Billing itself as the only fragrance bar in Chicago, The Scentuary is serious about providing scents which deliver not just a general uplift but a strong, calculated experience to individual customers. They are able to custom blend a scent from over 160 individual oils and fragrances to provide exactly the mental and spiritual renewals any customer may be looking for. Want to feel a burst of self-esteem while getting a dash of intellectual stimulus? Try the combination of Jasmine, Geranium, Green Tea, and Bergamot. The custom concoction can be made to be worn on the person or waft throughout a room or house.

Besides custom-blending scents, The Scentuary offers a wide range of pre-made scented cleansers of the body and mind. Body oils and lotions are made with all-natural ingredients and can be used in combination with various soaps which fight acne, open pores and exfoliate the skin. Candles, incense and other alternative methods of delivering scents are also available.

Perhaps the most surprising service offered is the chance to customize a scent for a party. Given measurements on the color scheme and theme of the party, The Scentuary can create an aromatic dress that perfectly fits the occasion. The consultation for this “Escentual Affair”, and all other business, is done in a tasteful room decorated with soft chairs, plush sofas and, of course, a color-matching array of scents. Far from being a modern-day snake oil emporium, The Scentuary is the real deal, delivering on its promise to enrich the lives of its customers through aromatic stimulation. 2154 E. 71st St. Sunday, 2pm-5pm; Tuesday, by appointment; Wednesday-Saturday, 11:30am-6:30pm. (773)643-1425. www.thescentuary.com (Ben Oren)

Best Italian Food On the Go
Italian Fiesta Pizzeria
Giordano’s and Leona’s are fine, quality places, but for Italian food that’s just as good for half the time and money, go to Italian Fiesta Pizzeria. Although there’s no place to sit, there’s no need, as the food comes out lickety-split. The portions are huge, and the food is maybe a notch above places with more atmosphere. Little touches like butter in the pizza crust and meat sauce to top the already-stuffed Italian sausage and beef sandwich makes this place worth traveling the extra mile. Additional niceties only further establish the Pizzeria as a must: pizzas come with such esoteric ingredients as shrimp and black anchovies, side orders include red pepper seeds and grated cheese, and the garlic bread doesn’t paint garlic spread on bread but uses, incredibly, real minced garlic. Pound for pound, cent for cent, ingredient for ingredient, Italian Fiesta Pizzeria should get just as much traffic as those other places with “tables”. 1919 E. 71st St. Sunday-Thursday, 11am-1am; Friday-Saturday, 11am-2am. (773)684-2222. (Ben Oren)